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%.. ' 









THE LAND OF ENOUGH 


BOOKS BY DR. JEFFERSON 


Quiet Talks with the Family 

Quiet Talks with Earnest People 

Quiet Hints to Growing Preachers 

The Minister as Prophet 

The Minister as Shepherd 

Christianity and International Peace 

Doctrine and Deed 

Things Fundamental 

The Character of Jesus 

The New Crusade 

Building of the Church 

Why We may Believe in Life After Death 

Talks on High Themes 

The Cause of the War 

A Fire in the Snow 

The Land of Enough 

Christmas Builders 


THE 


LAND OF ENOUGH 


BY X 

CHARLES E}/jEFFERSON 

PASTOR OF BROADWAY TABERNACLB 
NEW YORK CITY 


A CHRISTMAS STORY 



NEW YORK 

THOMAS Y. CROWELL COMPANY 
PUBLISHERS 




COPYWGHT, 1917, 

By THOMAS Y. CROWELL COMPANY 


SEP 27 1917 

- - 

^O.So 

©CI.A476238 

'Ho - 1 ’ 


' a/ 


The Land of Enough 

His name was Maximilian Maver- 
ton, and he was fifteen years old last 
June. But nobody ever called him 
Maximilian — not even his mother. He 
had been called Maximilian only once, 
the day on which his father had written 
the new baby’s name in full in the big 
family Bible. There was room for it on 
the blank page in the Bible, but there 
are no blank pages any more in the 
book of life. The modern world is too 
crowded for five syllabled names, and 
so no attention was paid to what was 
written in the Bible. Everybody be- 
gan at once to call him Max. Even 
5 


The Land of Enough 


the school teacher called him that, and 
if anybody had said “Maximilian” in 
the street. Max would not have known 
he was spoken to. There was only one 
other Max in the quiet, little village of 
Victorville, and this second Max hap- 
pened to be a dog which lived four 
doors down the street from the house 
which the hmnan Max called his home. 
The two Maxes were close friends. 
Whether the full name of the dog was 
Maximilian, I do not know. He was a 
good dog, but he never got his name 
written in a book. 

He did not care however. Trifles 
such as this did not concern him. Dogs 
have other things to think about. If 
the four-legged Max ever had troubles 


6 


The Land of Enough 


of any sort, he kept them to himself. 
That is the fashion of dogs. He was 
never heard to complain of a headache, 
or an earache, or a toothache, although 
he had probably been afflicted now and 
then in all these ways. All animals are 
dumb on the subject of physical ail- 
ments. Life on our planet would be 
unendurable if animals as well as hu- 
man beings were permitted to chatter 
about their diseases. Nor did the dog 
Max ever give way to cynicism. He 
never sat in the seat of the scornful. 
No one ever heard him scold or criti- 
cise. Even when a big, clumsy man 
one day almost crushed one of Max’s 
paws, the dog had simply exclaimed: 
“Oh, how that hurts!” and then had 


7 


The Land of Enough 


lapsed into silence, never saying an- 
other word. He bore all of his afflic- 
tions — and they were not few — ^with a 
resignation as beautiful as that of old 
Grannie Simpkins who had been an in- 
valid for years, and ^who was univer- 
sally conceded to be the holiest saint in 
the town. Max the dog had a content- 
ed heart. He seemed to be happy all 
the time. 

With the boy Max it was different. 
Of course a boy cannot be exactly like 
a dog. The boy Max was happy, but 
he was not happy all the time. He was 
happy in spots. His joy came in jets. 
His bliss was intermittent. He was 
up, and next day he was down. He 
grinned, and later on he groaned. Now 
8 


The Land of Enough 


he was on the heights, and now he was 
in the depths. On these perpendicular 
journeyings the dog Max never went 
with him: a dog travels horizontally 
only. A dog loves to walk with a boy, 
but it is only a short distance of the 
road that the two can travel together. 

Just why Max the boy was not hap- 
pier than he was, is a problem which I 
must hand over to the philosophers. 
He certainly had many reasons for be- 
ing happy. He had a kind father, and 
a devoted mother, and three affection- 
ate sisters, two of them already mar- 
ried, and settled in homes of their own, 
the third a girl in the High School, 
at this time almost seventeen years of 
age. Madge Maverton was so charm- 
9 


The Land of Enough 


ing that even her brother could not 
help feeling happier when he chanced 
to be where she was. She was no doubt 
the best looking girl in the town, and 
in the judgment of Milton Moonford 
— by no means an incompetent author- 
ity, for he had reached the ripe age of 
twenty-two, and had looked at Madge 
often — she was the prettiest girl in the 
county. Now a boy with loving par- 
ents, and pretty sisters, and a comfort- 
able home, and a neighbor’s dog to love 
him, ought to be happy all the time. 
But Max was not. He knew he ought 
to be, but no matter how hard he tried, 
he failed. Much of the time he was 
discontented, and some of the time he 
was actually wi’etched. The ailment 


10 


The Land of Enough 


was not physical. He abounded in vi- 
tality. Had his been a disease of the 
flesh like whooping-cough or mumps, 
the family doctor could have given him 
relief. His chum across the street had 
had a diseased appendix which was 
promptly removed, but Max had some- 
thing more baffling than appendicitis, 
and so far as he could find out there 
was no cure for it. Adenoids are trou- 
blesome, but they are not half so vex- 
atious as this thing which afflicted Max. 
The beautiful feature of an adenoid is 
that a surgeon can get at it. But what 
surgeon can get his instrument on an 
evil spirit, and that is what Max had. 
It was a spirit of discontent. It was a 
demon which grumbled and occasion- 


11 


The Land of Enough 


ally growled. The cause of its raging 
was that Max did not have enough. 
He was always falling short. He was 
weighted down with a sense of want. 
He was a boy of scarcity and acquaint- 
ed with dearth. He was habitually 
skimped. When he threw his posses- 
sions into the balance they were always 
found wanting. He dreamed of the 
land of abundance, but passed his life 
as an exile in the country of Need. 
His desire was always a little longer 
than his grasp. For instance, he never 
had enough pie. He often wished he 
lived in a world in which a boy could 
eat his fill. He did not want to be full 
of bread. He wanted to be full of pie. 
He used to calculate how many pies his 


12 


The Land of Enough 


stomach would hold, but he was never 
permitted to demonstrate the correct- 
ness of his calculations. He never had 
enough sleep, at least not on winter 
mornings. His father had a fashion of 
calling him too soon. Timothy Maver- 
ton was a man of gracious heart, but 
on winter mornings his stock of milk 
of human kindness seemed to freeze up, 
and, although a professing Christian, 
he neither did justly nor loved mercy. 
Even on the longest summer day. Max 
never had all the time he wanted. He 
was compelled to cram big games into 
narrow spaces. His favorite plans had 
a provoking way of projecting out 
over the frontiers of the allowable, so 
that it was necessary to lop them off, 
13 


The Land of Enough 


as old Procrustes chopped off the legs 
of his captives who happened to be too 
long for the bed which was provided. 
He never succeeded in getting any of 
his castles up to the wished-for height 
because of the exasperating interfer- 
ence of the building laws. Play was 
like pie in that it was always served in 
small pieces. Liberty was even scarcer 
than pie. There is in every American 
boy a flaming Patrick Henry who cries 
day and night: “Give me liberty or 
give me death.” Fate would give INIax 
neither. Max could not achieve free- 
dom, neither could he lie down and die. 
It is not easy for a robust boy of fif- 
teen to shuffle off this mortal coil. And 
so Max was compelled to drudge on in 
14 


The Land of Enough 


a sort of semi-slavery, bumping his 
head every day against a hard “Thou 
shalt not.” 

But it was not until Max got into 
the realm of finance that his troubles 
began in earnest. He had in him all 
the instincts of a master of high finance, 
but the only finance he was permitted 
to dabble in was not of this particular 
variety. Money was scarce in Victor- 
ville, especially in that part of the town 
inhabited by the Mavertons. Each 
family is painfully conscious of its own 
financial limitations. The limitations 
of other families being less brooded over 
make less impression. There had never 
been enough money among the Maver- 
tons as far back as Max could remem- 
15 


The Land of Enough 


ber, and the future prospects were not 
rosy. Timothy Maverton’s wages were 
good according to the current standard, 
but wages to the man who works for 
them are never as high ks they ought 
to be. The wages of Timothy were 
never satisfactory, either to himself or 
to his son. Max was a full-blooded 
American and came into the world 
with the Declaration of Independence 
stamped on every corpuscle in his 
blood. He believed that all men — and 
boys too — are created equal, and there- 
fore could never understand the justice 
of the arrangement which permitted 
Jack Toppleton, and John Vox, and 
Harry Murkson to have many times 
more spending money than he had. 

16 


The Land of Enough 


Like all American boys he assumed 
that spending money in satisfactory 
quantities is guaranteed to everybody 
by the Constitution of the United 
States. If a boy cannot do what other 
boys do, what is the doctrine of human 
equality good for? The lack of money 
was to Max the worm which would not 
die, and the fire which could not be 
quenched. He carried in his eye a land 
flowing with milk and honey, but be- 
cause of some inexplicable curse, he was 
not allowed to enter. The paradise of 
sufficient cash was guarded by cherubim 
with swords of flame. If you had asked 
Max the cause of all his tribulations, 
he would have promptly answered — ‘T 
never have enough !” 


17 


The Land of Enough 


Now if one does not possess enough 
of what he craves, it is evident he can- 
not be happy. For happiness, as every 
boy knows, consists in the abundance of 
the things which one possesses. Two 
pieces of pie, for instance, are better 
than one piece, and a thousand pieces 
would usher in the millennium. Six 
hours for play will raise the joy of the 
heart six times higher than one hour, 
and if one could play all the time, earth 
would become heaven. Ten dollars will 
put more pleasure in the cup at life’s 
feast than can be purchased for ten 
dimes. A hundred dollars will furnish 
a larger cup, a thousand dollars will 
buy a barrel, and a million dollars will 
pay for a hogshead, A boy prefers his 
18 


The Land of Enough 


pleasure by wholesale. Max used to 
amuse himself by figuring out ways in 
which he could be perfectly happy, but 
the ways always ran up to iron gates 
which were securely locked, and which 
refused to open, no matter how patient- 
ly he knocked and waited. What is 
more tantalizing than to have perfect 
happiness spread out before one’s eyes, 
with the price-tag in full view, and then 
discover, on inspecting the contents of 
his purse, that he does not have quite 
enough to buy it. Max was on the 
point a thousand times of closing the 
bargain, but every time he found to his 
infinite disgust that he fell short of the 
sum which was needed. This kept him 
in a chronic state of chagrin and repin- 


19 


The Land of Enough 


ing. When he felt unusually glum, he 
would ask Max the dog to go on a long 
walk with him. It soothed him to be 
near a life which was satisfied. Satis- 
faction reaches its climax in dogs on a 
walk. I presume that is one of the rea- 
sons why we like to walk with them. 

Fortunately there is one day in the 
year so radiant and mighty that it can 
lift mortals out of all their distresses. 
That day is Christmas. It is ever 
“merry” Christmas, and it sets the dull- 
est heart a-singing. But strange to say, 
its magic was impotent some years on 
Max. It seemed rather to increase the 
severity of the winter of his discontent. 
It was at Christmas time that he be- 
came peculiarly conscious of the mea- 
20 


The Land of Enough 


gemess of his resources, and abnormally 
sensitive to the inequalities of our social 
world. In every month of the year, he 
realized more or less keenly, his pov- 
erty, but in the bright light of Christ- 
mas he perceived he was no better than 
a pauper. Christmas is the season of 
overflowing abundance, and he who goes 
out to meet her must go with a horn 
of plenty in his hand. But Max Mav- 
erton was not the owner of a horn of 
plenty, and when he saw the big horns 
carried by the richest of his friends, he 
sank down at the threshold of the 
Christmas holiday, as doleful and dis- 
consolate as a beggar. Max never had 
enough at Christmas. 

To make matters worse, Madge 


21 


The Land of Enough 


Maverton was not unlike her brother. 
They say that girls are not like boys, 
but the people who say this are mis- 
taken. It may be true that boys are 
not like girls — Max always contended 
that they are not — but girls are certain- 
ly like boys. At least Madge was like 
Max in many ways. Neither one of 
them ever had enough. Madge had 
enough of certain things, but they al- 
ways happened to be the things which 
she was not specially fond of. The 
more she disliked a thing, the more cer- 
tain was that thing to accumulate on 
her hands, and the better she liked a 
thing the harder it was to get it. She 
was not at all fond of helping her 
mother in the kitchen, and yet the kitch- 


22 


The Land of Enough 


en was the very place in which Mary 
Maverton thought her daughter ought 
to be. The Maverton kitchen was pe- 
culiar in this, that the work in it seemed 
to be interminable. It had a way of 
multiplying itself which surpassed even 
the widow’s cruse of oil. Madge was 
not in love with mathematics. What 
dish- washing was in the kitchen, mathe- 
matics was in the school. An algebra 
was a dishpan full of greasy dishes. 
Geometry was worse than scrubbing. 

Nor was Madge fond of advice. It 
was even more odious than mathemat- 
ics. But Mary Maverton knew that 
her daughter needed advice, and so she 
gave it to her pressed down and run- 
ning over. Some mothers run sponta- 
23 


The Land of Enough 


neously to admonition, and Madge’s 
mother was one of them. She had a 
remarkable memory for retaining the 
events and experiences of her own girl- 
hood. She constantly compared Madge 
with herself. These comparisons turned 
out disastrously for Madge. A daugh- 
ter always cuts a sorry figure when 
contrasted with the model woman which 
her mother was when her mother was a 
girl. Remembered virtues are peculiar- 
ly vivid, and they are also exasperating 
when referred to too often. Children 
have no objection to present perfection 
in their parents: the only perfection 
which nettles them is a perfection which 
existed before they were born. Madge, 
like all other girls, was not like her 


24 


The Land of Enough 


mother. As her mother had more to 
do with the making of Madge than 
Madge had with the making of her 
mother, the responsibility for the un- 
likeness must rest on the mother. But 
Mary Maverton never quite forgave 
Madge because she persisted in being 
different from her. 

It was when the subject of dress was 
up for discussion that mother and 
daughter had their most exciting in- 
nings. This is a subject on which all 
girls have innate convictions, and these 
convictions cannot be altered by mater- 
nal reminiscences. In a contest between 
mother and daughter on the subject of 
dress, the laurel wreath invariably goes 
to the daughter. 


25 


The Land of Enough 


Madge never had enough to wear. 
She never had enough for her head or 
her feet or her neck. She persisted in 
comparing her wardrobe with that of 
the girls she went with, whereas her 
mother insisted on comparing it with 
her own wardrobe when she was a girl 
of seventeen. There are comparisons 
which are odious, and this is one of them. 
It brings no solace to the heart of a girl 
to know that her mother when a girl 
had still less than she has. There is 
small comfort in the thought that girls 
once did without what girls nowadays 
all desire. 

Madge loved her mother, but she 
laughed at her in her heart, whenever 
her mother attempted to prove from 


26 


The Land of Enough 


the statistics of her own girlhood that 
Madge had enough. 

If Madge was a vexation to her 
mother, she was a puzzle to her father. 
Mothers think they understand their 
daughters, fathers know that they do 
not. Men who start out with the 
expectation of comprehending their 
daughter always admit, soon or late, 
their defeat. No man can understand 
even his wife; much less can he under- 
stand his daughter. His daughter has 
in her all the mystery of her mother, 
combined with a lot of original mystery 
which each girl brings with her into the 
world. Timothy Maverton was a sen- 
sible man. He did not try to under- 
stand Madge. She was a conundrum, 
27 


The Land of Enough 


and he promptly gave her up. He won- 
dered at her, and loved her. She in re- 
turn loved him, and likewise marveled 
at him. Each was often amazed by 
what the other did not know. Parents 
frequently bewail the fact that their 
children do not understand them: chil- 
dren stand dumfounded by the daily 
disclosures of the ignorance of their 
parents. Madge always forgave her 
father on the ground of invincible ig- 
norance. She was certain he would see 
things as she saw them, if only he could 
be a girl; and Timothy was resigned 
because he realized that God in his in- 
scrutable wisdom had deliberately made 
women different from men. 

Now, as I was saying. Max and his 


28 


The Land of Enough 


sister were constantly oppressed by the 
fact that they did not possess enough of 
the things which make life really worth 
living, and the consciousness of this fact 
became positively painful on the ap- 
proach of Christmas. It is said in the 
Bible story that when Adam and Eve 
tasted the fruit of the tree of life, they 
suddenly realized they were naked. 
Christmas is a sort of tree of life, grow- 
ing in the garden of our year, and 
when Max and Madge came under the 
branches of this tree, and began to eat 
of the Christmas memories and tradi- 
tions, they all at once perceived they 
were largely destitute of the things 
which would enable them to cut a re- 
spectable figure in the presence of their 
29 


The Land of Enough 


friends. Christmas did not speak to 
them so clearly of the Divine abundance 
as of human poverty. It did not fix 
their eyes upon the heavenly benefi- 
cence, but on the squalor of our earthly 
lot. Instead of making them aware of 
their riches, it called attention to the 
things they were compelled to go with- 
out. 

The poets have a way of picturing 
Christmas as a fairy, lighting up the 
world. Madge thought it ought to be 
pictured as an imp, casting a shadow 
across the heart. She had read Sunday- 
school books in which Christmas was 
declared to bring solace and cheer to 
burdened spirits, but both she and Max 
had learned from bitter experience that 
30 


The Land of Enough 


Christmas has a trick of adding to the 
weight of burdens, and can reduce the 
brilliance of the sun at noon. It is an 
awful thing for a boy or girl to lose the 
vision of the angel Christmas, and to 
see in its place a grim-visaged Christ- 
mas, stealing like a demon through the 
December snows, intent on increasing 
the volume of human work and worry, 
and adding to the discontent and misery 
of mankind. Christmas is one of the 
heaviest curses when it reminds us only 
of the things we lack. 

One shrinks from saying that one’s 
unhappiness can be increased by the de- 
velopment of one’s virtues, but if that 
be not so, how will you account for the 
experience of Madge? Always kind 
31 


The Land of Enough 


of heart, she had grown more consider- 
ate and generous every year. But her 
expanding heart brought her no end of 
perplexities and tribulations. When 
only a little girl, Christmas had been to 
Madge a day which brought her pretty 
presents. “Christmas Gift I” she had 
shouted in childish glee to every one she 
met, and the gift of which she thought 
was not the gift to be given to others, 
but the gift which she wanted to come 
to her. But gradually old things passed 
away, and all things became new. The 
Christmas of receiving was transfig- 
ured, and gradually brightened into a 
Christmas of giving. To give was now 
life and peace and joy. To give more 
and more was her ambition. Her de- 


The Land of Enough 


sire to give advanced beyond her power. 
She longed to give more than she was 
able. The impulse of the heart leaped 
beyond the reach of the hand. In this 
way Christmas became a disturber of 
her peace. It was a glorious ideal, but 
the glory was so fierce that it blinded. 
In trying to lift Christmas action up to 
the level of Christmas feeling, the poor 
girl wore herself out. Christmas be- 
came to her a dread. 

It was in this way that she got caught 
in a whirlpool, which threatened to en- 
gulf her. She began by giving gifts 
only to her father and mother and 
brother. But as she grew older she 
saw that her grandfathers and grand- 
mothers ought to be added to the list. 

33 


The Land of Enough 


This was right. Later on, all the four 
uncles and all the seven aunts also had 
to come in. And of course her married 
sisters could not be overlooked, for in 
their homes were five little nephews 
and nieces as hungry for Christmas 
toys as young birds are for worms. 
To neglect one of those little ones 
would have been a sin for which Madge 
knew she could find no forgiveness 
either in this world or in the world to 
come. 

When one begins to make Christmas 
presents, where is he to stop? There 
are some roads which seem to have no 
end. Madge’s teachers were all dear 
to her, and how could she look them in 
the face on Christmas morning if she 
34 


The Land of Enough 


could not give to each of them a token 
of her affection and appreciation? Ev- 
ery girl has intimate friends, and how 
can she give to one, unless she gives to 
all? But how is it possible to give to 
everybody? It seems selfish to give 
only to one’s friends and kindred. 
Christmas is a kind, hospitable, char- 
itable time. The poor and the outcast 
and the forsaken ought not to be for- 
gotten. Madge was a worker in a Mis- 
sion school, and she had a group of 
fifteen girls, every one of whom was 
sensitive to the meaning of Christmas. 
Besides all these, there were scores of 
human beings in Victorville who had a 
claim upon her heart, simply because 
they and she were human. She could 
35 


The Land of Enough 


see their faces sometimes even in her 
sleep. From such sleep she would 
awaken with a sense of helplessness 
and bewilderment. At such times she 
thought of the story of the feeding of 
the five thousand, and sympathized 
with the disciples when they urged the 
Master to send the multitude away. 
That is what she wanted to do, but 
there was something within her which 
chided her for the thought. When she 
counted up her resources in hours and 
strength and dollars, she found she had 
even less than five loaves and two small 
fishes, and what are these, she sighed, 
among so many? Fortunate were the 
disciples, for the Master helped them 
out of their predicament, but Victor- 


36 


The Land of Enough 


ville was only a little out-of-the-way 
village into which Jesus never came, 
and so Madge was left to wrestle with 
her problem alone. It was too much 
for her. It overcame her. She sank 
down under it, faint and despairful. 
She hated Christmas. It was a horror. 
She despised herself. She was worth- 
less. She railed at the world. It was 
big and greedy and unreasonable. It 
had a thousand mouths, and there was 
not enough food in her little basket 
to go round. “O for the Land of 
Enough!” she used to say to herself. 
And one night when she said it, some- 
thing happened. It chanced to be the 
night before Christmas. She was weary 
in body and sick at heart. She was dis- 


The Land of Enough 


gusted with herself and provoked at 
everybody. She yearned to get away 
from her troubles into the Land of 
Enough. 

And in a moment, in the twinkling 
of an eye, the fagged and disconsolate 
girl was in the land for which she had 
passionately longed. How she got 
there I do not know. In story books 
wonderful things often happen, but now 
for once a wonderful thing occurred in 
real life. A flesh and blood girl seven- 
teen years of age, passed over from this 
world of want and need, and lived for 
awhile among people every one of whom 
had enough. 

Madge did not know at first she was 
in a. new world, so much was the new 


38 


The Land of Enough 


world like the old. The Maverton home 
was there. Its rooms were unaltered, 
and every piece of furniture was in its 
accustomed place. The calendar also 
was unchanged. December 24 in big 
black type spoke to her across the room, 
but such speech was unnecessary for the 
Christmas tree in the corner, and the 
presents piled up on the table left her 
in no doubt as to the month or the day. 
The town was the same. It was the 
dear, old, lovely Victorville which she 
had known from babyhood. When 
she opened the front door and looked 
down the street, the houses seemed 
all asleep in the moonlight, and she 
hummed to herself the lines of the 
Boston preacher : 


89 


The Land of Enough 


“O little town of Bethlehem, 

How still we see thee lie! 

Above thj deep and dreamless sleep 
The silent stars go by.” 

Madge herself was the same. She felt 
quite natural when she grew tired and 
sleepy. At last she went to bed. The 
night was a short one — all nights are 
short when the goddess of Sleep does 
her perfect work. In the morning 
Madge was completely refreshed, and 
in a few moments she was dressed, and 
down in the sitting-room ready to greet 
her brother. They met, but there was 
a strangeness in the meeting. Max did 
not have the Christmas look in his eyes. 
He did not seem to know it was Christ- 
mas. Madge handed him the present 
40 


The Land of Enough 


which with great pains she had made 
for him. He looked at it, and handed 
it back saying, “I do not care for it. 
Please give it to somebody else. I have 
everything I want.” 

Now boys are at best curious crea- 
tures, and they are often freakish in 
their actions. Madge supposed Max 
was playing a new joke — ^boys can 
sometimes see fun where girls cannot — 
and followed him as he left the room, 
with eyes that wondered. A few min- 
utes later Madge’s father and mother 
appeared, and they also seemed a trifle 
odd. They greeted Madge, but not in 
the Christmas manner. They seemed 
to have forgotten it was Christmas. She 
handed her father a pair of slippers on 


41 


The Land of Enough 


which she had expended a deal of work, 
but to her dismay, he did not seem to 
like them. Handing them back, he 
said, “I have all the slippers I want.” 
Her mother did not even take in her 
hand the present which Madge extend- 
ed to her, turning away with the re- 
mark, “Please give me nothing. Gifts 
are only a bore. For the rest of my 
life I have all I want.” 

Immediately the glory of Christmas 
departed. It was as if the lights at a 
feast had suddenly gone out, as if the 
flowers in a garden had all at once been 
nipped by frost. Madge’s heart turned 
to ice. It was to her a new and 
desolating experience — having doors 
slammed in her face on Christmas. 

42 


The Land of Enough 


The Christmas torch was extinguished. 
It had been put out by three words — 
“I have enough.” 

Madge had never felt so miserable in 
all her life. Home was no longer home. 
She could not endure it. What is home 
when no one in it is in need of anything ? 
Madge hastened off in search of some 
one who was in the Christmas spirit. 
She carried a heavy basket on her arm. 
It was the product of love and work 
and worry. It had presents in it for 
all the uncles and aunts and nephews 
and nieces, and for the mission girls and 
for the grandparents also. I have not 
the heart to tell you how she was re- 
ceived. The farther she carried the 
basket, the heavier it grew. A sad heart 
43 


The Land of Enough 


increases the weight of everything we 
bear in our hands. No one would ac- 
cept a gift. Everybody said the same 
thing, “I have everything I want.” 
Even the youngest of the nieces put 
down the offered toys with disdain. 
The word which children now spoke 
with most distinctness was the short 
word “Enough.” 

Madge determined to make one more 
effort. She went to the town orphan- 
age. A hundred poor boys and girls 
were there. Even they showed no in- 
terest in her basket. They were appar- 
ently devoid of all sense of want, and 
knew nothing of the grace of receiving. 
They wished for nothing. And so in 
the orphanage there was no Christmas. 


44 


The Land of Enough 


Children were there but Christmas was 
absent. It is said that children make 
Christmas, and this is true if you have 
a certain type of children. But if chil- 
dren want nothing, how can there be 
a Christmas? The joy of Christmas 
springs from the act of receiving. The 
calendar in the orphanage said “Decem- 
ber 25,” but there was no Christmas. 
Christmas is not a day. It is a state 
of mind. The desire to give was there 
in the heart of Madge, but one girl can- 
not make a Christmas. Generosity can- 
not of itself create Christmas. Christ- 
mas is the child of two impulses — ^the 
impulse to give and the impulse to re- 
ceive. If either of them fails, Christ- 
mas immediately collapses. In the 
45 


The Land of Enough 


Land of Enough there can be no 
Christmas. 

Madge had sometimes complained of 
children because they pestered her by 
their numberless requests. But now 
when they asked for nothing, she al- 
most cried out with pain. She discov- 
ered that the crowning glory of a child 
is its enormous capacity for receiving. 
A child perfectly satisfied is a mon- 
strosity. The charm of a child van- 
ishes the moment it loses its desire to 
have more than it has. It grows be- 
cause it never has enough. The wisest 
of all teachers has told us that unless 
we become as a little child we cannot 
enter into the kingdom of heaven. The 
reason is evident. The kingdom of God 
46 


The Land of Enough 


can be entered only by those who are 
willing and able to take the kingdom 
of God in. In other words, we are saved 
only by receiving. There is hope for 
everybody except the man who is sat- 
isfied. The Almighty dwells only in 
the heart that is contrite and humble. 
Progress, blessedness, glory, here and 
hereafter, are conditioned on one’s will- 
ingness to receive. 

On her way home, Madge had a talk 
with one of the policemen — ^there were 
only three in all Victorville — and this 
is what he told her: “There are no poor 
people any longer in the town. No one 
is in need of anything. No one is will- 
ing to accept anything from a neigh- 
bor or a friend. Nothing of any sort 


47 


The Land of Enough 


can be bestowed, because nothing is any 
longer desired. The charity organiza- 
tions have all disbanded. The schools 
have all been closed. You can give an 
education only to those who want it. 
The churches are shut, and will never 
be opened again. The Christian relig- 
ion is a religion for those who hunger 
and thirst, but hunger and thirst have 
now passed away, and the exhortation: 
‘Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye 
to the waters!’ falls on deaf ears. All 
human institutions were once founded 
on human need, but the need having 
disappeared, there is no reason why 
those institutions should longer sur- 
vive. You have not met a tramp or a 
beggar to-day, and you will never see 


48 


The Land of Enough 


one again.” Did Madge rejoice when 
she heard this announcement? No. 
She felt like crying. She had often 
wished there were no beggars, and as 
for tramps she had said they ought to 
be driven out of the country. But now 
that they had all gone she was misera- 
ble. She began to wonder how she was 
going to live. Life, she thought, would 
not be life unless it were possible for 
her to give. Giving had once seemed 
a burden, and now she perceived that it 
is wings. She began to hate the Land 
of Enough! 

Madge was just finding out what she 
had never suspected — that all human 
beings are made on the giving plan. 
They are made thus because they are 


49 


The Land of Enough 


all created in the image of God. God 
is the great Giver. He gives liberally 
to everybody and does not upbraid. He 
is eternally blessed because he is eter- 
nally giving. He so loved the world 
that he gave His only Son, and to as 
many as receive His Son, He gives 
power to become the sons of God. We 
should be neither human nor divine if 
we were deprived of the instinct and 
opportunity of giving. We should 
speedily smother if compelled to live in 
the Land of Enough. 

Madge desired to remain human. 
She wanted to be a girl. A girl is not 
a girl unless she loves to give. Madge 
had imagined she was tired of giving, 
but she was not. It was giving that had 


50 


The Land of Enough 

brought her the sweetest joys she had 
known. She had often longed for the 
Land of Enough, but having found it, 
she lifted up her eyes, being in torment. 
She now longed for the old world she 
had so foolishly despised. She wanted 
to get back. The world never looked so 
beautiful as it did now when she was 
separated from it by what she feared 
might be an impassable gulf. She was 
sure she could be perfectly happy if 
she could only once more live in the 
world where some people have more 
than others, and know more than oth- 
ers, and are more than others, the world 
in which no man lives to himself and no 
man dies to himself, but in which every- 
body is dependent on somebody else, 
61 


The Land of Enough 


the world in which we are all bound up 
in a great network of human need, and 
where the highest blessedness is found 
in bearing one another’s burdens. 

Madge got home in time for dinner. 
But it was not a Christmas dinner. 
The turkey and cranberries, the plum 
pudding arid the mince pie were all 
on the table, but material things do 
not constitute a Christmas dinner. A 
Christmas dinner is an affair of the 
spirit. We feed not on matter, but on 
things which come down from heaven. 
No one at the Maverton table wanted 
anything. Even Max had no appetite. 
When a boy of fifteen refuses to eat, 
darkness falls upon the land. Timothy 
and Mary and Madge made an effort 


52 


The Land of Enough 


to eat, but eating unless effortless is 
dreary business. All felt that dooms- 
day had arrived. On rising from the 
table, Madge’s first impulse was to pre- 
pare a basket of good things for old 
Mother Quigley, and another one for 
Job Allton, the aged soldier with one 
leg of wood and the other full of rheu- 
matism; but all at once it flashed upon 
her that these people were no longer in 
need. Even Lazarus had disappeared 
from the alley, and Dives could now 
fare sumptuously every day, and not 
be expected to give away even the 
crumbs. What a miserable world it 
was — a world without Lazarus ! Madge 
had often supposed she would be hap- 
pier if there were no poor people to 
53 


The Land of Enough 


whom to carry Christmas dinners, but 
now that there were no poor people in 
need of a dinner, she began to wonder 
how it would ever be possible to enjoy 
a Christmas dinner again. She had 
never suspected that a part of her 
Christmas joy had flowed from the joy 
of the hearts of the people who had 
shared in the Maverton feast. 

Do you suppose that everybody is 
completely satisfied in heaven? The 
books say they are. Possibly that is 
the reason why we are not more inter- 
ested in heaven. To most of us it is a 
dull place, to some of us it is repellent. 
We do not like it because of the way 
in which it is pictured. It is peopled 
by inhabitants whose felicity is com- 


54 


The Land of Enough 


plete. All are perfectly satisfied. No- 
body needs anything from anybody or 
from God. In popular theology heav- 
en is the Land of Enough. But that 
is a kind of land we do not want. We 
prefer to stay here. We wish to re- 
main in a world where we have the fun 
of wanting things, and where we can 
enjoy the blessedness of giving things 
to people who have less than we have. 

But the real heaven is not the heaven 
of the novels. The real heaven is the 
heaven described in the New Testa- 
ment, and that heaven is endlessly in- 
teresting and exciting. It is a heaven 
of movement, and variety, and climb- 
ing. Paul says that three things are 
going to abide in all worlds: faith and 


55 


The Land of Enough 


hope and love. If this be true, then we 
shall always be trusting in realities we 
are not permitted to see, and always an- 
ticipating good things which have not 
yet come, and always pouring out our 
love upon those who need it. If the 
ideal life is a life of service, then for- 
ever and forever we shall be making 
contributions to the souls of those who 
are made richer by our service. Since 
God is the same yesterday, to-day, and 
forever, those who awake in His like- 
ness are to be forevermore the same, 
and since from everlasting to everlast- 
ing he is the Infinite Giver, it must fol- 
low that the time will never come when 
we shall cease to be givers. But if we 
give forever, then forever must there 


56 


The Land of Enough 


be those who will have the capacity for 
accepting what is given. The joy of 
giving and the joy of receiving will 
travel together through all eternity. It 
is life’s very strangest paradox, that to 
be absolutely blessed, we must forever 
fall short of having enough! 

The length of that Christmas day 
cannot be measured by any clock we 
have on earth. Time is not measured 
by figures on a dial. It is measured 
by heart throbs, by raptures, and by 
agonies. Madge measured the day by 
agonies. It was an eternity and more. 
In the afternoon she went out in search 
of Max the dog. Her own brother had 
disappointed her, and she threw herself 
back on the mercy of an animal. She 
57 


The Land of Enough 


found him, but, alas, even animals had 
changed. She offered him a piece of 
cake, the very kind he had liked the 
best, but he walked off from her saying 
with a stiff inflection of the tail — 
“Thank you, I’ve had enough!” 

At the end of the day, the disconso- 
late and hungry hearted Madge flung 
her arms around her father’s neck, cer- 
tain there was at least one gift which 
he would be willing to receive — a kiss! 
But Timothy Maverton in the Land of 
Enough was a man quite different from 
the man whom Madge had known all 
her life. He was no longer fond of 
kisses. Pushing her gently away he 
said firmly — “Don’t!” and when she 
inquired with a sob “Why?” his only 


58 


The Land of Enough 


reply was: “I do not care for kisses. I 
have had enough!’’ 

This was the most unkindest cut of 
all. Then burst her aching heart. With 
a scream of pain she leaped to her feet, 
frightening everybody near her, and 
found herself standing in the middle of 
the room. Immediately she burst into 
uproarious laughter, which was so long 
continued that Max suspected she was 
out of her wits. She was laughing be- 
cause she knew she was back once more 
in the dear, old, prosaic, threadbare, 
out - at - the - elbows, run-down-at-the 
heels world in which millions have less 
than they need, and nobody has as much 
as he wants; but in which everybody has 
the unspeakable privilege of making 
59 


The Land of Enough 


himself superlatively happy by dream- 
ing now and again of the unimagina- 
ble blessedness of the thrice-fortunate 
inhabitants of the beautiful 


LAND OF ENOUGH, 


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